These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
I read this brilliant short story once where the Earth had been 'stolen' by a massive rogue planet (the earth started to orbit it instead of the sun). A family had survived by building a air tight shelter and having a constant fire burning. They had to go out to fill up buckets with frozen oxygen to bring back and defrost.
Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
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Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#12These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
The planet was found to be between 50 and 120 millions years old, with a temperature of approximately 400 degrees Celsius, and a mass four to seven times that of Jupiter. Not exactly sure what "temperature" refers to there, but Wikipedia tells me that Jupiter itself has a surface temperature of less than -100 degrees C. So even without a star, it's rather substantially warm. However, at Jupiter's distance, the solar…
I'm most of the way through reading Neil deGrasse Tyson's book "Origins", and I just finished chapter 24 last night, which deals with this exact subject.
By the way, it looks like the entire book is available online; this[1] is a link to the section of ch. 24 that talks about these star-less planets and the possibility that they contain life.
First, he points out the "extremophiles" that exist on earth -- for example, organisms that live on the sea floor, where the heat from the sun is fully nullified. Despite the great atmospheric pressure and the lack of light and heat, life still thrives in these environments. One of the factors that facilitate life at these extremes are the geothermal processes (vents in the sea floor) which are purely disconnected from the events of the sun, and completely powered by our magma core.
As we know, many planets are suspected to have molten cores, which are the result of their formation and which will continue to remain such for billions of years (we will probably be wiped out by our Sol turning into a red giant before our the Earth's core will lose it's energy). As such, though it'd be near-impossible for life to survive on the surface of a planet that is not a part of any solar system, under the surface life could be bountiful.
1. http://books.google.com/books?id=o6OmdAFDTVQC&lpg=PA233&...
That's page 244, and from there until the end of the chapter (p.250) is all relevant to your comment.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#13Given enough time, I wonder if this planet can gather enough gas and dust to turn into a star.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read this brilliant short story once where the Earth had been 'stolen' by a massive rogue planet (the earth started to orbit it instead of the sun). A family had survived by building a air tight shelter and having a constant fire burning. They had to go out to fill up buckets with frozen oxygen to bring back and defrost.
A Pail of Air http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6...
classic
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#15These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
> hideaway for a fleeing civilization
Larry Niven's Known Space books deal with this. They put a civilization of herbivorous creatures called Puppeteers on a group of sunless planets accelerating away from a catastrophe in the galactic center. One enjoyable aspect comes from the creatures' herd-like, risk-averse nature, a hold over from their distant past as prey animals. They dream of fleeing forever, enjoying a nomadic existence in the voids between galaxies.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#16Looks like it was detected in the infrared. The article is a bit light on detail, but on the face of it it's an absolutely astonishing achievement to detect a planet-sized body with an earth-based optical telescope.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
The planet was found to be between 50 and 120 millions years old, with a temperature of approximately 400 degrees Celsius, and a mass four to seven times that of Jupiter. Not exactly sure what "temperature" refers to there, but Wikipedia tells me that Jupiter itself has a surface temperature of less than -100 degrees C. So even without a star, it's rather substantially warm. However, at Jupiter's distance, the solar…
I'm most of the way through reading Neil deGrasse Tyson's book "Origins", and I just finished chapter 24 last night, which deals with this exact subject. By the way, it looks like the entire book is available online; this[1] is a link to the section of ch. 24 that talks about these star-less planets and the possibility that they contain life. First, he points out the "extremophiles" that exist on earth -- for example…
The core of planets do not remain hot for billions of years based on their formation. They remain hot because they have radioactive material that continues to generate heat.
Before the discovery of radioactivity invalidated the calculation, the fact that the Earth's interior is still hot was used by Lord Kelvin to set an upper limit of 40 million years for the Earth's age.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#18Given enough time, I wonder if this planet can gather enough gas and dust to turn into a star.
If its trajectory takes it through a nebula at some point during the universe's lifespan, I would think it should be possible.
By that time, our species should either be long extinct or have evolved into vaguely godlike space-beings.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#19These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
Damn, I forget the name of the story, but I read one set on such a rogue planet. They were facing a catastrophe - their low-temperature planet was going to pass through the solar system, and they needed to work out a way to prevent themselves from being cooked to death.
Wish I remembered the author or title, and I wish even more that the author would expand it into a full-length novel.
Re: Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time
#20These planetars stoke the scifi imagination. They are the perfect hideaway for a fleeing civilization... or deadly weapon. What kind of life could exist on a planet without a star? Even when the scientific payoff is limited, the payoff to the imagination is immense.
> hideaway for a fleeing civilization Larry Niven's Known Space books deal with this. They put a civilization of herbivorous creatures called Puppeteers on a group of sunless planets accelerating away from a catastrophe in the galactic center. One enjoyable aspect comes from the creatures' herd-like, risk-averse nature, a hold over from their distant past as prey animals. They dream of fleeing forever, enjoying a nom…
Actually, I think their plan is to go to the Magellanic clouds, following the rest of the Known Space species who would get there before them via Hyperdrive.
It's been awhile since I've read the series, the Ringworld novels bored me.